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Canteen serves hearty British food (from carefully sourced ingredients) and after a couple of drinks at the BFI cafe bar on Friday (another evening of incessant rain), that was just what me and L fancied.

We hadn’t booked but were fortunate enough to get a table that had just become available. It was 8pm, the start of the weekend and this branch of Canteen at the Royal Festival Hall was busy, as you’d expect.

Scotch egg

So we were greeted and seated immediately, and ordered a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc @ £19.00 from the ‘Good white wine’ list (as opposed to the ‘the great’, ‘our favourite’, and ‘brilliant white’ sections – all clearly laid out, in a says what it is on the tin kind of way) and a Scotch egg to nibble on as a shared starter.

The Scotch egg was simply divine – with a runny yolk centre and a crispy, crunchy crumb shell, served with piccalilli @ £3.75.

Haddock + chips – with mushy peas

For main course I had haddock and hand-cut chips with tartar sauce @ £13.75 (well it was #FishFryday after all and I’d been hankering after some good fish and chips all day – they were really crispy but not dry, and no oil in sight) with mushy peas @ £2.75, while L had slow cooked beef stew with stout, onions and glazed carrots @ £12.50 and chips @ £3.50.

Slow cooked beef

This was traditional, nourishing British food at its best – great quality food and reasonably priced too. Our total bill for two came to £62.16 including a 12.5% service charge (although – rather cheekily – the new server who brought us the bill asked us to please leave a cash tip as well, saying that waiting staff wouldn’t get the service charge already added to the bill).

Canteen bill for two

A good reminder that the old British favourites, when served well, can be great.